AIB to hold internal inquiry into overcharging

INTERNAL disciplinary action may be taken against AIB employees believed to have been named in the Deloitte probe into the €34 million foreign exchange overcharging scandal.

It is still unclear however whether names will be named by the time the process is finally concluded, sometime before the year end.

This possibility strengthened yesterday when the bank appointed a high powered committee of senior directors to oversee its response to the overcharging scandals.

The committee will have power to discipline those found to have broken bank rules over the eight-year period of the foreign exchange debacle, the statement said.

It comprises three directors including Gary Kennedy, financial director, Jenny Winter and chairman Mike Sullivan.

For legal reasons the financial watchdog IFSRA refused last week to say names had been named in the Deloitte report, conducted by the bank and overseen by former Comptroller and Auditor General, Lauri McDonnell. An AIB spokeswoman also refused to comment on the possibility of such an eventual outcome.

The recently published report into the scandals at National Irish Bank was held up for at least a year due to a legal wrangle involving the publication of names of top bankers guilty of aiding serious tax evasion and other abuses.

In the end 19 high ranking executives within the bank, all since resigned from their posts, were publicly named as having facilitated the various tax evasion and other scams operated by the banks staff.

In its statement yesterday AIB said those brought before the committee would be protected by the bank’s own code of practice. Their legal rights will also be safeguarded.

The AIB spokeswoman said the anticipated publication date of before Christmas 2004 would not be stretched further as a result of the bank’s actions.

The bank said it was still too early to say whether the bank would end up naming names.

The committee’s brief includes consideration of any appropriate disciplinary proceedings against individuals involved in the foreign exchange overcharging that went undetected and unreported for about eight years in all.

The first report into the AIB’s overcharging was published in early June and it found the bank guilty.

IFSRA chief executive, Liam O’Reilly said at the time that further investigations were required to see if there had been some form of “cover up”.

Those investigations are still on-going as is the search to identify who was responsible for setting up Faldor to help top AIB executives evade tax via the offshore investment vehicle.